the calm
by ObliviousTrace
Summary: Waiting is always the hardest. It allows too much time for thought, too much time to reveal things you never wanted to know. Post HBP


**the**** calm **

_i__ haven't mastered smiling yet,  
and my defenses are still no match  
for green eyes_

_- Christian Ragunton_

She wondered when her life had made this turn.

Arriving home, exhausted from the journey, dropping trunk in hallway to rush to her parent's arms, she tried to savor everything, tried to notice it all. When her mother sobbed on her father's shoulder after she told them that she was leaving in a few weeks, she looked around the kitchen, eyes drinking and memorizing every little detail.

Her trunk was never fully unpacked and her wand was always with her. When she left, when she bid farewell and got ready to apparate to the Burrow, she kept her eyes open to try to have one last view of the house she thought, knew, suspected, she would never see again.

She arrived and fell into arms willingly, rough hugs, shy touches, blazing looks from blue eyes.

But she searched for the green, the green that was heavy lidded and reluctant, lingering in the back.

Hermione could almost feel the power radiate off of him.

She couldn't sleep her first night at the Burrow, so she went down to the small pond instead, trailing her feet in the cold water, watching ripples grow and expand. She knew without knowing that Molly would be awake, watching the clock, Ginny would be awake, watching Harry, and Harry would be awake, watching the heavy gold locket in his hands. Ron would be asleep.

She left the pond and went back to the house, entering not her room, but the redhead's. She curled her form around his sleeping one and he draped an arm over her in his sleep. When he woke up the next morning, he blinked in confusion, before smiling brilliantly and blushing. She smiled in return and went down to breakfast.

The house was a flurry of movement as Molly was everywhere at once and Fleur just flitted around anxiously, beaming and yelling in turns. Hermione started walking farther each day to get out of the commotion.

Harry walked too, but she didn't try to follow him. She knew he needed to be alone, she knew, though it hurt to admit it, that if he wanted company he'd ask Ginny. Ron, imprisoned by his mother's demands, would wait wistfully at the house for them, angry at their desertion until Hermione would come to him at night and lay by his side.

She clung to him in the night and hoped and hoped and hoped that when green eyes closed, it would only be in sleep.

Hermione found she couldn't talk to Ginny anymore. Her dating Harry had somehow put a wedge between them; the younger girl now seemed to resent Hermione for being so close to him, for being allowed the privilege of accompanying him when the time came.

Hermione resented her too, for reasons she couldn't and didn't want to name.

But she found herself watching Harry more often; caught herself staring when she shouldn't be. His green eyes captured hers sometimes, and he would smile wryly. He never would smile that way before, she noticed.

One night Ron kissed her, tentatively and clumsily. She closed her eyes and kissed back and knew, honestly, there was no other place in the world she wanted to be.

The next day she walked farther, ran even, knowing that no matter how far she went, she could always apparate back. That day she thought about Malfoy, about looks she had seen, about a rivalry that seemed, in the face of everything else, childish and fake.

Harry had told them what he witnessed on the tower. Just like him, she felt sorry for Malfoy, but for different reasons.

Malfoy had always wanted green eyes as well.

She kissed and held Ron at night and during the day she ached for something she didn't recognize. She started reading even more as she realized that the wedding was approaching and summer was ending. Hermione researched desperately, thinking that maybe, maybe on the next page, would be some clue, some curse, some spell, some help that would end all of this, that would protect them…him.

The others were preparing as well. The power she had felt that first day was growing even more palpable. When Lupin and Tonks visited, she saw the look on her old professor's face when Harry walked in the room. It was some comfort to realize that she wasn't going crazy.

Ginny withdrew into herself, growing pale and thin and sarcastic. Her comments grew bitter and she rarely smiled.

She found Ron one day in his room practicing wandless magic with a pained look on his face. He was getting better, she noticed.

She didn't know what Harry did. Harry disappeared for hours at a time and she had a feeling that despite his promises, he had started searching already.

McGonagall visited one day and talked to him in private. Hermione looked out the kitchen window and saw them talking, grim looks on their faces, in the back garden.

Dumbledore was really and truly dead at that moment.

That night she whispered to Ron and he blushed and swallowed and nodded. In the dark she touched him and he touched back and they were moving together and she bit her lip to keep from making noise.

In the morning she was a little sore and she resented the knowing look that Fleur gave her when she sat down gingerly.

But though she loved the nights, though she treasured the nights and though she realized she loved Ron, _so much_, the feeling of want and emptiness grew and grew within her.

She walked back to the woods and thought about Malfoy again and the things that he never could have and that's when she started to cry, for the first time since the funeral. Dumbledore was dead and the war was here, it was truly here, and she would never go back to Hogwarts and all she thought about was green eyes green eyes.

The next time she saw Harry she couldn't breathe, she couldn't look at him, all she could think was _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou_ until her heart was beating so fast that there wasn't room for anything but _youyouyouyouyouyouyouyou_.

And it was strange, to try to look at herself from an outside view, because Hermione had always thought of herself as a sensible girl, and she didn't know she was capable of wanting, anything, that much.

She surprised Ron that night with the ferocity of her kisses and she knew then, with the certainty only she could possess, that she loved Ron, that she wanted to be in his arms for the rest of her life.

She just wanted Harry's arms around her at the same time.

Hermione was shocked at herself, because that wasn't normal, because no reasonable girl wanted _two_ men, because you're supposed to fall in love with only one person at a time.

She drank too much champagne at the wedding and danced until blisters grew on her feet and laughed and smiled and tried not to look at Harry, tried not to compare the feeling of dancing with him and dancing with Ron, tried hardest of all not to ask both for a dance.

And the morning came, entirely too bright for the occasion. It should have been somber, grey, but the fates instead mocked them with sunshine and blue sky.

She hefted her bag onto her shoulders and embraced the remaining Weasleys and swallowed hard. Ron was pale. Harry couldn't look at Ginny. Hermione couldn't look at Harry.

Then she knew it was time and they disappeared together.

They emerged in a small street in an out of the way village, cold suddenly creeping in. Ron reached out and took her hand and she squeezed it back.

It was the three of them, but Harry was the one who led the way, who took the first step forward.

Hermione bit back a cry and she and Ron followed a step behind.


End file.
